            !  "# !#$$%%&’%$ 1 Redesign of urban freight transport in the old town centre of Celje municipality, Slovenia Dejan DRAGAN * , Tea VIZINGER, Marko INTIHAR and Tomaz KRAMBERGER University of Maribor/Faculty of Logistics, Celje, Slovenia [Corresponding Author’s email address: dejan.dragan@fl.unimb.si]                                                                                                                     I. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION At present time, when the sharpening of competitive situation and the economic crisis are in progress, the optimal organization of the delivery traffic in cities also becomes more and more topical. In general, the urban freight transport consists of the following segments: supplying stores with the goods, supplying of restaurants, delivery of reproduction material to craft and similar workshops, supplying of other business entities, etc. Of course, the globalization and the materialization of the economy have resulted in growing quantities of freight moving within cities. As freight traffic commonly shares infrastructures with the circulation of passengers, the mobility of freight in urban areas has become increasingly problematic. Optimization of delivery traffic is also necessary with respect to some other undesirable consequences, such as [1]: additional pollution of urban air, additional burden of city traffic, additional noise in the cities, reduction of parking places for cars and other personal vehicles, obstruction of cycling and pedestrian’s traffic, etc. So, messy delivery traffic can bring a whole range of consequences that can significantly reduce the quality of life in cities. Delivery traffic problems generally can be resolved in several ways, such as [1]: introduction of measures connected to the time and space constraints concerning freight vehicles approach to the city, introduction of measures to reduce the range of vehicles which do not meet the ecological criteria, introduction of priority arrangements for delivery vehicles or implementation of specific corridors or streets for delivery, introduction of the predetermined rules based regime of specific time and spatial arrangement for pedestrians, who cross the road, and so on. Also, the construction of hub distribution center located close to the treated urban area could be one of the solutions to improve the characteristics of urban freight transport. The municipality of Celje is also confronted with numerous problems mentioned above that affect the effectiveness of delivery traffic in the old town core (OTC). It was therefore necessary to adopt certain measures to improve such problems and achieve more optimal freight transport. Figure 1 shows the observed area in the OTC, where optimization of freight transport should be adopted. As it can be noticed from Figure 1, it also shows the external borders, which surround the observed area. Also, the area of intersection of two roads, where the delivery traffic is entirely prohibited because of specific reasons, can be seen from figure 1.